


Home in the Stars

by oldmythologies



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Family, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Friendship, Gen, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-21 00:33:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9523091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oldmythologies/pseuds/oldmythologies
Summary: Shiro would rather die than hurt one of his own.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Updates Mondays

She swung at him, a desperation in her eyes he had never seen before.

“Fight me,” she whispered, “please.”

He looked to the stands, where Matt stood. Their eyes locked.

Pidge swung again, half-heartedly, but Shiro didn’t move. He barely even flinched as the energy sliced through the first layer of armor and scratched his skin. It was just their luck. There he was, and here they were. Standing in an arena that was eerily similar to the one Shiro had last seen Matt in.

He looked different now. His hair was longer, his skin was paler, but his eyes remained the same. They were colored like honey, sweet and overwhelming, a shade he could just drown in.

“Fight!” Pidge’s exclamation broke him from his rapture, bringing him back to his nightmare.

* * *

It was just their luck. It was supposed to be a simple mission. Just him and Pidge. Stealth in on the green lion, get the information, and get out. They had done it a dozen times before. Pidge had honed her Galra hacking and Shiro was very good at letting his arm serve as a conduit while protecting his friend. This mission had been no different. It had been going smoothly until Pidge finally got her information. She froze.

“Shiro,” she started, “Shiro! Come look at this!”

She was practically bouncing, turning the computer to show her compatriot. It was Matt’s picture, his prisoner number, and a location.

Matt was here, on this godforsaken moon in the middle of nowhere Galra territory.

* * *

 

Tarkir had been conquered sometime in the first millennia of Zarkon’s rule and subsequently forgotten. It still sent resources to its Galra overlords, and the Galra still sent drones and slaves, but it and its inhabitants were otherwise free to live as they wished.

Shiro jumped out of the way of another careless slash as he tried to find a way out of this.

He understood why the Galra no longer felt a need to hold a presence on this planet. Here, they believed in the Galra. The Tarkirians identified with the Galran culture; they no longer needed to be reminded. They built this arena with their own hands, no prompting required. They had gotten the lighting just right, eerie purple and red. Four pillars, and each looked like the same stone he remembered  _ breaking as he hit it, the pillar crumbled. He could feel the new dust coat his lungs as he tried to breathe through the pain, just one more broken rib… two more broken ribs and the monster, no it wasn’t a monster it was a person and he didn’t want to hurt them but he had to because he needed to live, the monster loomed over him and they— _

He shook his head; he wasn’t there. He was here. Fighting Pidge, which was much worse.

Pidge didn’t know when to stop, and when she found out her brother was in the same building as them, Shiro knew he would have to keep her safe as she did what she was going to do. 

They had taken the vents because Pidge thought it would be safer. Shiro had a difficult time fitting his shoulders into such a small space, but he managed. For her. For Matt, who he tried so hard not to think about,  _ about his eyes as he hurt him, his smile, the way he laughed— _

Shiro had shaken his head. No time for that now. They dropped into the barracks of the work camp unseen.

* * *

 

She lit up her bayard, and Shiro swore he saw tears in her eyes as she started towards him. He wouldn’t hurt her, he wouldn’t hurt anyone  _ the creature cried when it saw him, bloody sword, breathing hard from the last three matches and it tried to escape but the walls were too high and the crowd was too loud and he didn’t want to but he had to so he— _

Shiro needed to breathe. He knew this terrain, he knew how to get space. Shiro leapt back, startling Pidge, and took a running jump at the farthest pillar, lighting up his Galra arm as he made himself a hand hold. The movement jarred his socket, abusing the point that metal met flesh ever further. He felt more nerves snap and gritted his teeth through the pain. He swung himself up, pulling his weapon out of the rock, replacing it with his left arm, and creating a new grasping point with the right. He repeated this until he had the required distance in order to  _ think _ .

* * *

 

They landed in the barracks unseen, but not unheard. Apparently, even in space, vents carried sound. The Tarkirian guard was waiting for them. In the silence, Shiro could hear his heartbeat. Pidge’s breathing stuttered as she looked at him for guidance.

He reacted quickly, but not quickly enough. He struck at the closest guard, dropping them in one hit, but another already had cuffs ready. They snapped it onto his weapon, rendering it useless. The metal instrument suddenly stopped carrying itself and pulled at his shoulder, pulling the tendons to their limit and testing the connection between metal and flesh. Some of those connections were apparently not up to par and he felt a nerve or two snap. Shiro would never let that keep him down and swung wildly with his left; his arm was caught before it made contact with anything. He tried to kick, but now his legs were swept out from underneath him. As he breathed into the cold floor, he was finally able to see Pidge. She was in much the same position as he was. A guard lay twitching next to her. At least she put up a fight.

Pidge stood at the bottom of the pillar, yelling up to him.

“Shiro, come on!” she hollered. He could see her mouth “For Matt.”

For Matt, Shiro would do anything. For Matt, Shiro lived when he wanted to die. For Matt, Shiro endured a year so difficult he doesn’t even  _ remember  _ it. Shiro looked at him, standing next to the Tarkirian king in worn alien robes. He had his hands covering his mouth, tears freely streaming down his face as he watched his beloved sister and his friend being forced to fight to the death. Below him, Pidge looked up with the same desperate honey eyes. For Pidge, for Katie, Shiro would die.

* * *

 

Shiro wished he had been paying more attention to Allura’s mission briefing. He was usually the most attentive paladin; sometimes he even took notes, but it had been a long night. It wasn’t unusual for Shiro to run on four hours of sleep. He rarely got more than five. There was too much to do. He needed to plan, coordinate attacks and training schedules, to train, to hone his skills and his strength and his stamina. He needed to avoid the thoughts that complete darkness brought, the memories of the dark cells and the glowing purple behind his eyes whenever he closed them. That night, he couldn’t turn off his brain as he found a hole in his memory and just kept poking at it.

Because of this, he had no idea what to expect when they were shoved to their knees in front of the alien king. The king reminded Shiro vaguely of a spider, with four eyes on a head with no neck. He was covered in a thick coat of what Shiro assumed were antennae, based on how they seemed to prick up in response to their entrance. Shiro started to inspect the king further, but was instead distracted by a yelp from behind the throne. He stretched his neck to see some sort of serving boy and—

Shiro’s heart soared. Pidge cried out and tried to reach out for her brother but was held fast by cuffs. She went rigid as she received a small shock from the offending instruments.

It was at that moment that the king finally decided to speak.

“You are warriors, no?”

* * *

 

Shiro released his grip from the rock. No point in making this harder on either of them. He let himself hit the ground with his full weight. Shiro gritted his teeth as he willingly took the force of the fall on his knees.

He looked up at the young paladin, staring at him with wet eyes and her bayard clutched in her fist, knuckles gone white with the strain.

“Shiro, what—”

“Make it look good.”

The king was far behind him. He didn’t hear Shiro’s quiet imploration, nor did he see the watery smile Shiro gave her as her eyes widened in understanding.

He didn’t give her time to respond, instead launching himself at her. He let his stance be off. The punch had no weight behind it as it flew towards her chestplate. Pidge was a smart girl, and she took the opportunity. He had known she would. She pulled the fist away from her body and kneed him in the stomach.

_ That a girl _ .

* * *

 

When the king stood up, Shiro forced himself to look away from the ghost behind the throne. At full height, the Tarkirians were nothing short of terrifying, with three-jointed spindly legs and four arms, each with two curved claws at the ends. The king must have been at least nine feet tall.

He walked towards the paladins, each step a gentle click of exoskeleton on the stone floor. Shiro knew enough about royalty to look down. Pidge was never one to respect authority, and out of the corner of his eye he saw her glare at him. She never knew when to stop. The king stopped in front of them, kneeling down sharply to grab Pidge’s jaw between two of his claws. She hissed as he turned her head, inspecting the muscles and lines, ignoring her rebellious eyes.

“You do not look like a warrior,” he told Pidge.

“And you don’t look like a king,” she snapped back.

Shiro winced internally and looked back at Matt, who looked like his heart was about to jump out of his throat, watching the king touch his sister.

The king made a clicking sound that might have been a laugh before turning his eyes to Shiro.

“You are a warrior, yes?”

Shiro looked the spider king in the eyes. Anything to get his attention off of Pidge.

“I am. We both are.”

The king stood back up, looming  _ over him with a knife, ready to slash at his face if he didn’t move fast enough to— _

Now was not the time.

“Are you now?” the king seemed to ask himself, turning to look back at Matt, who froze in place. The king’s head tilted, considering. 

“The small one looks like the slave boy.”

Pidge growled, ready to snap at the king. Bad idea. “Yes,” Shiro interrupted before she could even begin. “We’ve been looking for him for a long time.”

Shiro could only hope that this was a benevolent ruler. The king considered.

“Na’ikon,” he called. The guard standing behind Shiro tensed in response. “My king,” the guard responded. Shiro tried to turn to watch the conversation but they were too far above him and he was too constrained by the cuffs pulling the skin at his left arm and the pain in his right shoulder.

“It has been too long since we’ve had a show. Gather your soldiers.”

_ The Galra cheered as he entered the arena, the smell of blood sticky and familiar in his nostrils. The lights still stung his eyes, all these months later. His wounds ached, one reopening as he stood across from his opponent, and they were so small, he couldn’t fight a child no this wasn’t a child this was an alien and only one of them would survive so he— _

“We won’t fight,” Pidge said simply. Her voice didn’t waver in the slightest. He knew that she knew exactly what was happening in his head. He thanked the stars for the millionth time that he was lucky enough to have such an understanding team.

The king tilted his head at her and knelt back down to her level. “You will if you want him back.”

“My king!” Na’ikon started, “you should not give up a valuable asset, you can force them to—”

The king cut him off with the wave of a hand.

“That fight would not be worth watching.”

* * *

 

The crowd cheered as something finally happened and Shiro had to swallow back the panicked memories that kept trying to surge to the surface as he was thrown to the thrown by a girl who probably weighed half what he did.

Shiro made sure to land heavily on his injured right shoulder. He cried out as the damaged nerves took yet another hit.

He staggered to his feet and took another charge at Pidge. This time she sidestepped, letting her bayard graze his side as he ran past. She refused to look at the wound, staring firmly at the ground as she blinked back tears. 

Matt was hating all of this, Shiro knew. Matt hated being helpless and he hated seeing the ones he loved get hurt. Shiro was sorry he had to put them both through this. He had to make sure that Katie wasn’t the one to deal the finishing blow; Shiro didn’t think she would ever recover from that.

He played up the scratch on his side, pretending that it weakened him, pretending that he hadn’t been through and fought through so much worse. He stumbled and turned back to Katie, to Pidge, and noticed the set of her jaw. At that moment, he knew that she would be okay. That she could do it.

On the next pass, they met in the middle. Shiro feigned a block with his metal arm before twisting letting the bayard sink into his stomach.

Shiro barely felt it. He knew it was the end, that he’d won. An ache started to radiate from his center as Katie removed her bayard, eyes as wide and bright as the moon. Tears tracked down her face and Shiro was reminded of rivers flooding in the spring, bringing life. He fell to his knees, smiling. Something was trickling out of his mouth, probably blood, but he didn’t care. Behind Katie, he finally got to really look at Matt. He was so pretty, even when he was ugly sobbing. God, he was so cute when he was ugly sobbing.

Katie fell in front of him, and oh god she was ugly sobbing too. He was so sorry, he’d meant to kill himself, not force her to carry this burden.

“‘m sorry, so sorry—” he tried to say through the blood creeping up his throat.

She let out a great sob as he fell forward, trying catch himself before bloodying her nice paladin armor, but he was apparently too weak, too selfish, and he fell into her, coughing up blood, splattering the white with red.

“Love you all,” he gazed at her, trying to imbue his words with as much importance as he could muster before his eyes turned glassy and couldn’t tell her anything anymore.

She held him, and with just as much intensity, through her own heaving breaths “Shiro, hold on, we all love you so much you can’t—”

And then he faded with more love in his heart than he’d ever thought possible. The flashbacks normally brought pain, but this time, he only saw the good parts. Flying for the first time, being selected for the mission, going to space and then them. His friends. No, his  _ family _ . He saw Hunk smiling as they enjoyed a dinner he had lovingly crafted. Lance and Keith elbowing each other. Lance with his face mask, his self doubt, and his unerring compassion. Keith, young, teaching him how to fly, how to have family and how to believe. Keith now, the leader. Allura, patient and radiant. She would make the perfect black paladin. Pidge, pure excitement as she discovered something new. Matt— Matt and him, holding each other, literally living their dream as they stared at the stars.

Shiro had always loved the stars. They were every color of the rainbow, enveloping him with warmth. He couldn’t wait to go home, knowing that everyone he loved was safe. He was finally going home.


	2. Chapter 2

_ He felt her, pulling and manipulating his nerves. He felt her fuse every single one of the threads, and distantly knew he was screaming at every pull. The molten metal at the end of every filament filled each vessel until he couldn't tell where he ended and  _ it  _ began. _

_ He could still feel his real arm, clenching and unclenching a fist that wasn’t there. His entire body was tense with the strain of trying to move something that just  _ wasn’t there  _ and the fire being poured into his veins did nothing to help. He kept screaming, thrashing at the feeling, trying to get his hand to just  _ move  _ but it wouldn’t and he was tied down, restraints pulling at every joint and limb, cutting into his skin, but compared to the feelings in his right shoulder in his tendons, pulled as tight as they could go, he didn’t even notice. He pulled and pulled and screamed and— _

Shiro practically leapt out of the cryopod, eyes wild as he tried to breathe,  _ he couldn’t remember how to breathe as new sensations, new pain, hit his brain and— _

He fell into the arms of someone waiting to catch him, and it  _ hurt _ . He sucked in another sharp breath as pain laced out from his abdomen, hitching on the scratches on his side, bruised ribs, and  _ oh god  _ his shoulder burned in a way it hadn’t since  _ they pulled the nerves apart and cut each one surgically and why didn’t they numb the pain at all why did he have to feel all of it— _

“Hey,” a voice above him whispered. “You scared us.”

_ Keith?  _ Keith wasn’t supposed to be here, he was safe, he had saved them, he had gone home—

Another sob wracked Shiro’s body and he tensed in response to the new pain coursing through his body. Someone materialized at Shiro’s side and pulled him onto a cot in the med bay.

“Easy there, number one!” Coran’s voice, chipper as always, cut through the fog of confusion as Shiro let himself be laid down. Finally able to look around, he saw all of them. Lance, standing behind Keith, hand on his shoulder in silent support. Coran on his left, forcing a smile as he got the paladin situated. Hunk and Allura, smiling through wet eyes, obviously worrying. He couldn’t find Pidge, and  _ he let the bayard sink into his stomach— _

No, that wasn’t real. Was that real? Was he alive? He wasn’t supposed to be alive. He thought for a moment about how if this was heaven, he’d be happy. All of his friends, together, and yeah it hurt a little, but at least he wasn’t alone.

He found Pidge, separated a ways from the group. Shiro let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding as he realized that she was safe, and if she was safe, then— 

_ Matt _ . Shiro tried to push himself up to a sitting position but the slash through his abdominal muscles made him shudder as he tried. Keith pushed him back down onto the cot.

“Matt?” Shiro tried to say, his voice coming out dry, air scratching through his vocal chords, but Keith picked up at the sound.

“He’s safe,” Keith replied, “he’ll be okay in a few hours.” He nodded to a cryopod next to the one Shiro had just come out of.

Seeing Matt’s face, serene in rest, Shiro finally let his shoulders slump, and he fell into unconsciousness once more.

* * *

 

It had taken much too long to get to them. Keith, Lance, and Hunk had been on a mission of their own, freeing prisoners from a work camp on the other side of the system. By the time they returned, Allura was out of her mind with worry. They had told her not to come after them until it had been 25 hours; it had been 24.

They knew where the green and black paladins should be. By standard (space lion) travel, it was about eight hours. With a wormhole, it only took two.

It was 28 hours before they were finally able to locate the green lion, and 31 before they honed in on the damaged communication systems in their armor.

It was at that moment, when they finally saw the grim readouts from Shiro’s armor, that Keith went on a rampage. He wasn’t well known for his self control, but at some points Lance and Hunk found it difficult to keep Keith from killing himself in the process of saving Shiro.

Keith single handedly destroyed an entire castle, desperately searching for a signal. As soon as the last ceiling fell onto a particle barrier, he knew he found the right spot. Aliens scattered from arena stands as Keith destroyed them. The arena emptied before the lions could all land, afraid of the wrath of the angry god that had fallen on them.

Pidge was crying, wailing to the heavens as she held a bloody form, much too large to seem that small. Next to them was someone else, on his knees with her, body shaking as he held the bloody form’s hand. 

Keith ran to them, ignoring the flames on all sides, followed closely by Lance and Hunk. When Keith saw the tableau in front of him, Shiro, lying still, surrounded by red in stark contrast to his white skin, splattered on his white armor, on Pidge’s  _ hands  _ as she tried to stop the bleeding but her hands were too small to do any good, on Matt—oh my god, that was Matt—as he tried to get Shiro to look at him, to see him, Keith saw  _ red. _

_ Fuck  _ this planet, he felt like screaming. He wanted to kill them all, he wanted to just  _ fight  _ something, anything, but he couldn’t. Not right now. Right now he needed to save his best friend, his brother. Forcing himself into the scene, he scooped Shiro up in one swift movement, yelling at the people left huddling on the ground.

“Get up!” he roared, “We need to go, now.” He looked down at the paladin in his arms, but he didn’t have time to check for a thready pulse or weak breath. He sprinted full bore back to his lion and didn’t even notice Hunk gently pulling the shell-shocked Holts into Yellow or Lance, picking the bloody green bayard up from the dirt and watching his friends shamble away before returning to his own lion.

The Tarkirians were, overall, primitive and weak. There wasn’t any point in completely destroying them before returning to the Castle of Lions, so they didn’t. Pidge was dropped off back at Green, but Keith and Red headed straight for the cryopods. That was his only chance. Cradled in his lap as he flew, Keith felt no movement from Shiro. Some part of Keith knew that Shiro was dead, but he was warm, he was  _ still warm _ , and Keith would not let his own lateness be the reason Shiro was dead.

Coran and Allura were all business, masking their own worry with just  _ doing  _ as they prepped Shiro for the cryopod. He would deny it, but Keith might have cried a little when Coran felt Shiro’s pulse, weak underneath his fingertips but still  _ there  _ and that was all that mattered.

He was shoved into the pod a few minutes later and they all let out breaths they didn’t know they’d been holding. Allura sat down heavily next to table they had used to prep Shiro, and Coran busied himself by checking all the settings and readings from the pod. Keith pulled off his gloves, desperately rubbing at his face, trying to rub out the feeling of helplessness and hide the tears that kept threatening to spill. He slumped to the floor, leaning against the table, and stared at Shiro’s face through the glass. 

He had looked peaceful in death.  _ Not death,  _ Keith reminded himself. But now, he twitched, eyebrows scrunched as he whimpered. Keith furrowed his brows.

“Coran, is he supposed to be having dreams?”

Coran looked up from his numbers and stepped up to the glass in front of Shiro’s face.

“No,” he said, “he’s not.”

* * *

 

“You can be a real jerk sometimes, you know that?”

Lance liked to pretend that Shiro could hear him. He held the clammy hand as Shiro shivered yet again. Lance placed his hand on Shiro’s forehead, feeling the unhealthy heat and sweat. Shiro’s brow furrowed and Lance ran his hands through the bangs sticking there.

“You’re so selfish for someone that doesn’t care about your own life.”

Lance grabbed the washcloth and bowl of water he had been using and dabbed at Shiro’s twitching face.

“Keith was so scared, you should have seen it.” Lance laughed. “He hasn’t been that scared since I asked him out.” He smiled in remembrance, letting the silence comfort him as he continued to work.

“We all love you, you know. Pidge is a mess. I hope you thought about what your dumb self-sacrificial leader shit would do to us. When Matt woke up he stared at you in there for an hour before we could even get him to eat anything. He’s nice. He rambles worse than Pidge, but I like him. I can see why you do. He’s sleeping now. They’re all worried out of their mind. I know you’re going to be okay, because you’re Shiro. You always make it through, right?”

Shiro didn’t respond, but Lance kept talking, and eventually Shiro stilled, the constant voice lulling him out of the nightmares and the fever and into real sleep.

* * *

Coran looked down at his tablet, punching in numbers, looking at the readouts, and scrambling when he noticed the problem.

“We have to get him out!” Coran realized.

“What?!” Keith asked incredulously as Lance and Hunk entered the room, Pidge mysteriously missing. “We just got him in, he won’t survive—”

“He won’t survive if we leave him in.”

“What’s going on?” Lance asked as he and Hunk reached the pod, helmet under his arm and confusion etched into his face. He looked to Keith for an answer. Keith didn’t have one. Instead, Coran responded.

“His arm has its own sort of nervous system. Something has severed the connection between Shiro’s nervous system and the arm’s, and the pod is registering it as two separate beings. Long in short, the pod is trying to regrow Shiro’s arm, which it can’t do, and to grow the arm a body. Both of these actions, together, have a high chance of permanently damaging his nervous system.”

“But if he’s pulled out, he has a high chance of  _ never waking up _ .” Keith pushed, almost feeling guilty for the responding twitch and downcast look Coran gave in response, but he didn’t care. He wouldn’t let them kill Shiro.

Lance, standing behind the scene, looked on in worry. When he saw Keith absent-mindedly take battle stance, Lance grabbed his elbow. Keith turned and Lance saw the desperate hope in his eyes. Lance squeezed his arm in reassurance and looked at Coran.

“How long can he stay in before we risk damage?”

Coran looked back at his data pad, mumbling, furrowing his brows.

“—and if you carry the two—”

He scrambled off the check his calculations.

Lance tried to catch Keith’s eye as he stared at the ground.

“You okay?” he asked.

“No,” Keith responded, “not until he is.” Keith inclined his head to the pod, and Lance looked over.

Shiro twitched in his sleep.

“He looks so  _ uncomfortable _ ,” Hunk said from behind them, “and tired.”

All three stared at their unconscious leader, twitching in the recovery clothes they’d put him into after pulling off his blood soaked armor and battlesuit. They hadn’t been able to stop the bleeding before putting him in the pod and there was a patch of red running down his center.

Their reverie was interrupted as Matt ran in, panting like he just ran a mile, followed by a silent Pidge.

“Where is he? Is he okay? Oh my god he has to be okay I can’t have found him just to see him—“

Pidge interrupted his ramble by slapping his arm and pointing to the pod. He slumped in relief.

“Hey, you must be Matt.” Lance walked up to his teammate’s brother, extending his hand in welcome. Matt took his hand, gratefulness clouding his eyes, and pulled Lance into a hug.

“Thank you,” Matt pulled away from a shocked Lance to look at the rest of the team. “Thank you so much.”

He slumped down to sit on the medical table, letting go of Lance to pull his sister into a tight hug. Allura gave them a moment before gently resting her hand on Matt’s shoulder.

“You are welcome in my home,” she said. 

He nodded in response, not bothering to question the alien princess or her alien castle, but accepting the welcome regardless. If Katie and Shiro trusted this woman, Matt, too, would follow her without hesitation.

“You are greatly weakened by your time with the Galra,” she continued. Matt nodded. Pidge held onto his arm, trying not to think of where he had been. Now, he was here. “We have the technology here to return you to full health within the day, if you choose to use it.” Matt’s gratefulness intensified as he looked around at how much everyone  _ cared  _ for him, a man they’d never met. He nodded again, looked over at Shiro, and let Allura lead him into the pod. He took a deep breath as the pod took effect, freezing him a perfect state of calm.

Pidge, now without her brother, shifted her weight awkwardly foot to foot, refusing to look anyone in the eye. Still covered in Shiro’s blood, she wanted to crawl out of her skin in her own guilt and confusion. She felt so  _ stupid, stupid, stupid _ , she should have known they were coming, should have known that it would be okay but instead she let herself hurt him, let him hurt himself, impale himself on her blade, the one that she knew Lance had picked up, and  _ oh god  _ they must hate her. 

“You should clean up,” Allura’s regal voice reminded Pidge. She nodded and left the room, leaving the remaining three paladins and Allura to consider all that had happened as Coran continued to do math.

Hunk, ever the caring soul, was the first to speak.

“Think she’s going to be okay?”

“As long as he is, so will she,” Lance responded, nodding to Shiro in the case.

They stewed in silence, watching and waiting. There was nothing else they  _ could  _ do. By the time Coran returned, everyone was stuck in their own heads. He knew how hard it was to be confronted with death. He’d been there. He’d watched it, time and time again. All Coran could do was make sure no one let it break them.

“We’ll pull him out in 800 ticks, on the dot!” he interrupted. “He won’t be right as hot rock rain quite yet, but those nasty wounds will be mostly closed and we can let his body do its thing.”

Everyone let out a sigh of relief they didn’t know they were been holding. Eventually, Pidge silently returned, clean and showered, but pale nonetheless. Coran positioned Keith to catch Shiro upon waking and pressed the button.

* * *

Shiro woke this time with less of a start than before, but as he opened his eyes to darkness, he couldn’t help but feel a sting of panic as  _ the last of the light was pulled away as the door closed and Shiro was left in nothingness. The floor and walls were metal and it was so so cold, he was hungry and tired and he couldn’t tell the difference between opening and closing his eyes in the dark and he could see and feel things that weren’t there and needed anything to— _

“Hey,” a voice spoke from the dark. It was such a gentle sound, Shiro was sure that it was just an echo from his nightmare. He shut his eyes against the memories brewing just under the surface.

Unlike the usual interjections from his ghosts, this voice was accompanied by quiet, uneven breathing. He didn’t dare open his eyes lest it fade away.

“Matt?” he breathed, eyes squeezed tight.

Shiro felt something barely graze the stubble on his jaw and tensed, jolting away from the touch, eyes snapping open to assess his attacker, a small man with chin length hair dressed in the Altean equivalent of pajamas and eyes as warm as honey. They seemed to be taking him in with equal parts fear and amazement. Shiro hated that fear, hated knowing that everything he had done changed him and now even Matt, his best friend who he might have loved hated him, feared him, didn’t like him didn’t know him hated him—

“Shiro,” the offending ghost interrupted, “I can’t believe you’re here.”

He reached out, trying to brush Shiro’s cheek again as the larger man shied away. “You’re not really here,” Shiro rasped, “you’re dead.” Ghost-Matt scoffed and pulled back his hand. Shiro almost missed its closeness.

“So are you,” he said.

“Are you okay?” Shiro defaulted to his default protective leader/dad mode. Matt, the little shit that he was, rolled his eyes.

“I’m not the one that was fucking stabbed in the stomach.” 

Shiro laughed.

“Language.”

“Oh my god, I can’t believe I let you watch Captain America. You’re twenty two, you need to stop.”

“I mean, the parallels are uncanny,” Shiro smiled. Matt laughed a bit, the chuckle fading away into silence as they continued to look at each other. The silence was heavy in the med bay, low blue night lights illuminating them both from below, sharpening their features and emphasizing the shine in their eyes.

Shiro broke the silence as softly as he could.

“Is it really you?”

Matt’s entire posture softened as he pulled in closer to Shiro’s prone form. He finally placed his hand on Shiro’s face, gently assuring that the man couldn’t look away. Shiro leaned into the touch, fear be damned.

Matt got this certain face when he was really focused, confident. His mouth would set and his eyes would scrunch up just the tiniest bit, just enough for Shiro to know he was serious. This face was normally reserved for science time. He had only seen it out of that context once, and that one time had changed everything.

“It’s really me.”

Shiro looked up at the other man and knew that his face betrayed the fear and uncertainty he had been feeling and knew that Matt could see right through it.

And Shiro fucking  _ broke _ . He whimpered, nuzzling even closer to the hand on his face, so long gone and so missed. The water in his eyes finally broke the surface, a combination of relief and pain. He tried to curl in on himself but the stitched wound in his stomach wouldn’t let him. His breath hitched as his body started to shake, trying not to sob or feel the pain still coursing through his right shoulder. He couldn’t really hear anything as he kept trying to fill his lungs up but it just wasn’t  _ enough  _ he couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t see and—

Warmth surrounded him, engulfing his trembling form. It was good, and it was safe, and Shiro kept trying to breathe as someone held his head, rubbing small circles at the nape.

“—we’re safe, you’re right here. I’m right here. It’s me, I promise it’s me, and I’m so happy you’re okay, and I’m okay, everyone is okay—”

Shiro slowly felt his fists unclench, listening to Matt’s soft muttering, feeling the warmth and the closeness, smelling his clothes, feeling his tears, and he let himself sleep surrounded by safety.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for no chapter last week! I had the stomach flu and then the normal flu back to back, it was super fun. Sorry for the short chapter, but hopefully we'll be back on track for next week!

Pidge wretched over the toilet, trying to pull something, anything, out of her already empty stomach. The dry heaves continued as the exertion sent tears spilling down her face. She gripped the edges of the metal the Alteans had used to construct all of the paladin bathrooms, her knuckles gone white.

As soon as her body gave up, realized there was nothing left for her to throw up, she slumped back in the space between wall and toilet, relishing in the cool surfaces of the bathroom. She couldn’t stop replaying it in her mind and it made her sick. She couldn’t stop feeling his blood on her hands as she killed him, as it cooled and grew sticky on her armor, as the light left his eyes— 

No, no he was okay. She had seen him just a few minutes ago, unconscious but alive. That thought brought new memories, memories of him grappling with nightmares as the paladins took turns trying to calm him. None of it really worked. She wondered if she was the reason for his nightmares or if they were memories of something far worse. She didn’t know which was worse.

* * *

Pidge watched Shiro as his body was wracked with fever and pain. His brief moments of lucidity did nothing to curb the storm of guilt she currently stood in. The rest of the castle was busy, repairing lions, checking systems, or resting, healing themselves.

The group had set up a schedule, leaving someone to stand vigil over Shiro as he remained (mostly) unconscious. Some sort of infection had set in a few hours after they had pulled him out of the pod. Luckily, it was a bug that Coran and Allura were familiar with. They said that it would pass in a few days with the right treatment, no harm done. Of course, they had also said that the pod would be fine with Shiro’s arm.

Pidge didn’t really believe anyone right now. She didn’t believe in herself. So caught up in the moment, in that arena, in her brother and in Shiro’s certainty, she had thought that killing Shiro was somehow  _ okay _ . Now, she realized that losing one brother couldn’t make up for gaining another. 

She sat in the chair next to him, hesitant to touch him. Instead, she laid her hand next to his, a hair’s breadth away.

“Why do you want to die so much?” she started, quiet enough that even if anyone else had been in the room, they wouldn’t have heard it. “Why do you keep putting yourself in these situations? I know, I know, you want to keep us safe and all that  _ bullshit _ ,” she increased in volume, “but did you ever stop to think that  _ maybe  _ we want you to be safe too?”

He didn’t respond, still breathing unevenly and twitching in response to something Pidge couldn’t see. She stood up in one swift movement, her chair falling back and landing on the ground with a loud crash. Pidge paid it no attention.

“For the most selfless person I know, you’re so god damn selfish. God, do you know how Matt would feel if you’d died for him? I don’t know what happened between you guys on that mission, or with the Galra or—”

She choked on her words for a moment before plowing on.

“He loves you. He would hate himself, and knowing Matt he wouldn’t ever get over it. And did you ever stop to think how I’d feel, if you died, if— if you’d died or I’d— you’d be dead and that would be on me! God, if this is how I feel when you lived, just imagine what a mess I’d be if I killed you.”

She finally said it.

“I killed you. I saw you die and it was  _ my fault _ . Who gives a  _ fuck  _ if it was because you wanted to die. You killed yourself on my blade. I guess you thought you were saving both of our lives, or some masochistic bullshit because you’re  _ Shiro _ , glorious black paladin Shiro,” the sarcasm dripped from her words, “but sometimes I feel like you just  _ want  _ to die. Don’t you care about us?”

Shiro shivered, curling in on himself.

“Keith would have shut down again. It took him so so long to open up to us, and he’s finally in a good place, he and Lance are somehow happy, and you just want to blow it all up!” She started pacing next to the cot, oblivious to Shiro’s soft whimpering.

“You give and you give and you give and you give but I think that it’s just because you,  _ perfect  _ Shiro, just want to die. You don’t think!  _ We  _ don’t want you dead, idiot! You decided that we’d be better off without you, but why didn’t you ask?”

She stopped in front of his face, not noting the change in his posture or the pained sounds trying to make their way out of his throat.

“Stupid, dumb, idiot! I can’t believe I just went along with your plan, this is your fault! You make these decisions and we just have to go along with it and you always hurt yourself, and that hurts us! Stop it!”

At her final exclamation, Shiro’s voice finally escaped his lips in a soft shout, like someone had hit him.

Pidge, stuck in her rant, finally heard him. He shook, jolting away from hits he was only receiving in his mind. Pidge’s mouth fell open and her eyes grew wide as she realized that she had only been pushing him farther into his nightmares. She tried to scramble away, almost tripping on the fallen chair in the process.

Tears spilled from her already wet eyes as she spoke, barely loud enough to be considered audible, “I’m sorry.”

And she ran away, leaving him alone in the empty med bay.

* * *

Hunk was going to be early to his shift of Shiro watching, but that was okay.  Pidge was there now, and she could probably use some hugs as well. He was kind of detached from it all and no one had really explained what had happened between them in that arena, but Hunk had seen Lance return her bayard, covered in blood.

He was smart; he knew what that meant. Hunk also knew that Pidge would never want to hurt Shiro, let alone kill him. Knowing Shiro, he’d probably fallen on her blade for her own good. She would still blame herself.

He walked from the hangar down the silent halls of the castle until he got close enough to the med bay to hear something. Pidge was obviously letting out something, which was good, Hunk thought. She needed to talk to someone, even if he was unconscious. 

The sound came to an abrupt halt, followed by a crash. Pidge came darting out of the room and past Hunk before he could even really see her, and he finally heard Shiro’s high pitched keening from the med bay. Hunk sighed. One thing at a time.

First, Shiro. The sight he was greeted with was not a pleasant one. Shiro was holding himself as small as possible, eyes all scrunched up and arms clutching desperately at the blanket. It would have been almost cute to see Shiro all curled up like a child if it wasn’t for the noises the poor man was making, the sweat on his brow, the quaking of his muscles. The entire team had been forced to deal with Shiro’s nightmares at one time or another, and every one of them had a different way of dealing with it.

Hunk liked to recite recipes. As he remembered his mother’s technique for making sure that her croissants contained the perfect balance of fluffiness and butteriness, he gently pulled the blanket out of Shiro’s natural hand, forcing it to loosen and relax. The physical sensation of relaxing, a concept so foreign to Shiro, must have woken him. He jolted from sleep, stiffening and straightening in the cot as if it was a surgeon’s table.

His eyes refused to focus as they darted around the room without moving his head. They were glassed over, hazy and dilated. His breaths came fast and uneven as he searched for his attackers. 

He let out a pitiful whimper and Hunk’s heart broke. He sometimes thought of Shiro as their infallible steadfast leader but moments like this reminded Hunk just how  _ young  _ the man really was. 

“No, no no nononono _ nooooo  _ don’t touch me I can’t take anymore I can’t I can’t I’ll do whatever you want…”

Shiro kept begging, pleading, searching for someone to ask mercy. He refused to see Hunk even as the he stroked Shiro’s tuft of white hair off of his sweaty forehead. Shiro went so far as to scream when Hunk forced Shiro’s eyes to meet his. He continued his mumbling as Hunk tried his best to shush him.

“ _...no  _ I need my arm I need it, stop stop stop please stop I can’t do it anymore  _ please _ …”

“Shiro, hey buddy, it’s just you and me here, and I promise you’re safe. It’s in the past, and we’re in the castle, remember? You have friends here, me, Allura, Pidge, Matt is here and he’s safe now too.”

Hunk wiped the tears from Shiro’s cheeks.

“...lying, you’re lying, I’m alone I’m all alone Matt’s dead Sam’s dead…”

None of Hunk’s words made it through to Shiro’s brain, but Hunk held him through the entire hallucination. At first, he thought Shiro would pull himself out of it, like he always pulled himself out of his nightmares and flashbacks, but Shiro didn’t stop crying and mumbling until he apparently lost all energy to do so. As soon as Shiro was relatively still, Hunk went to find Coran.

* * *

Pidge sprinted down the hallway, feeling sick again, and pounded the pad next to her door, begging it to open as quickly as possible. She kept her eyes locked on the ground as she immediately turned into the bathroom to retch up all the nothing in her stomach.

She shuddered into the toilet, trying to breathe evenly, begging herself to calm down. She wasn’t expecting the hand that started rubbing familiar, gentle circles on her back. She turned her head, leaning her head on the cold rim to see the furrowed brows of her brother.

“I haven’t seen you this sick since we both got the stomach flu when you were, what, eight?” Matt said, smiling through his worry.

“Excuse you, I was nine.”

He laughed, smiling fondly at his younger sister. It would have been a nice moment, had Pidge not suddenly needed to hurl again.

When she finished, Matt was there with a damp hand towel like some sort of caring brother that she barely remembered.

“What is this, are you being  _ nice  _ to me?”

“What, I was always a great brother! I only sat on you when you really deserved it.”

It was Pidge’s turn to laugh, letting the moment fade. They sat in a comfortable sort of quiet  as they looked each other over. Matt reached out to Pidge’s shorn hair, considering the change.

“I like it,” he said, breaking the silence.

Pidge threw herself into his arms, shocking both of them with the suddeness of the movement. He didn’t smell like he used to, like libraries and the fruity shampoo he always stole from her. He was more firm than she remembered, more lean muscle and prominent bones. His hands were rougher than she remembered as he held the back of her head as she cried into his shoulder.

He was crying too, noticing just how strong his little Katie had gotten. She had just turned thirteen when he left home two years before. She was a completely different person now and it hurt to realize that he didn’t get to live through that transformation with her. He was the big brother, he was supposed to be there for her as she grew up, he was supposed to see her change and help her through it all. He knew that getting abducted by aliens wasn’t necessarily selfish, but it sucked.

Before Kerberos, the Galra, Voltron, they were close, but holding each other while they cried probably wouldn’t happen. They both used to show affection through sarcasm, through shared interests and playful pranks. They were different people now. They’d both gone through too much for people of their ages and now, turns out they were people who needed to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on tumblr [@oldmythos](oldmythos.tumblr.com) for updates on this and [fanfiction spreadsheets](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ptF0Dt6FXItVWjbUp3jsfdl2ZJrhoW8AaCu-DNDo8DY/edit?usp=sharing) and general fangirling.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This is my first work of this length since middle school, so I'd appreciate any and all constructive criticisms. I also welcome any suggestions for what you'd like to see. I will be updating Mondays as long as my schedule allows. Unbeta'd for the time being, so let me know if you find any mistakes! Comments and kudos are much appreciated :)


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